


Pat

by Cupcakeking



Category: Folk Punk Music, Original Work, Pat the Bunny
Genre: DIY Punk Scene, Didn’t give the narrator any sort of gender identity bc I want people to project onto them, It’s very much ‘don’t meet your heros’, Multi, Nor did I give them a name, Pat the Bunny - Freeform, Queer Themes, Y/A fiction, and kind of identify with the story more, folk punk music - Freeform, not sure what got me to write this, writing about real people still makes me uncomfortable but I wanted to branch out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 00:16:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18981283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cupcakeking/pseuds/Cupcakeking
Summary: Hey! I’ve been working on this piece for a while, and I’m still not sure how far I’ll go with it. Comments are appreciated!





	Pat

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! I’ve been working on this piece for a while, and I’m still not sure how far I’ll go with it. Comments are appreciated!

“You know he’s not real right?” Theo said, brushing his hand across the crummy basement carpet, his fingers passing before my eyes as they threaded between the shag fibres. I looked up from where I laid, crumbs and dirt stuck to my cheek. Theo’s eyes were red and glazed, I assumed mine looked much the same.

“Huh?”

“Pat, Johnny Hobo, whatever. The image you’ve created of him in your head, he’s just a guy, you know. I know he kinda spoke to you, with all his whiny punk shit, but you’ve kinda put him on a pedestal.” I rolled my eyes and laid my head back on the floor, watching the lint drift away from me under the couch with each breath I took.

“You wouldn’t get it.”

Theo sighed. The record skipped where it always did; right before the riff hit. The door creaked open and Theo’s older sister walked through our haze to get to the laundry, waving her hands in front of her face fairly dramatically.

“You’re gonna get smoke stains on the ceiling if you keep doing this, take it outside next time.” Tanya scolded, making Theo groan.

“Can’t hotbox the world, Tan.” He said, as if he were repeating a very basic fact to someone with no understanding of the world.

“I mean, you could theoretically. If you take the ozone layer into consideration.” I added, mulling it over. He hummed, as if I had made a very wise point that he would consider.

“You guys are idiots.” She said with a laugh, sauntering out of the room after throwing the load in the washer. My eyes tracked her ass as she left, I know I shouldn’t have, with Theo right next to me and her being nearly ten years older, but I couldn’t help myself.

I went home a couple hours later. The dust turbines picked up by the breeze encapsulated my attention for far longer than I would have liked and I walked in the door as after dinner dishes were being done. The wind rushed in behind me and I could tell my mother could smell it on me. She glared and I escaped into my room rather sheepishly, the sound of dishes crashing between themselves as they’re loaded haphazardly into the dishwasher followed me until I clicked the lock on my door. My record shelf called to me, beckoning me ever closer to the power it held. I ghosted my fingers over the titles, passing over a worn down dust jacket that contained the first ever record I received; God Bless Tiny Tim was the title, by one good ol’ Tiny Tim. It was meant as a joke, to ‘break in’ my shitty little Crosby player that I had gotten from my stepdad on the first night of Chanukah when I was twelve, but jokes on them, I played and replayed it till I nearly wore an extra groove in the disc.

I selected a favourite of mine, a classic if I were to be classifying it in that way. Ramshackle Glory’s ‘Live The Dream’. I put it on the machine and dropped the needle, a little harsher than needed, and drifted off in my own unchanged filth to Pat’s creaky, rough voice serenading me and filling every hole in my heart I didn’t know I had.

The next day started bright and early, with a banging on my door in lieu of an alarm clock. I shuffled down the stairs with my thick wool cap pulled down nearly over my eyes and still dressed in the same clothes from the day before. Very reminiscent of Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. I sat down on the torn vinyl seat and rested my head on the cool wood of the table and let out a rather melodramatic groan. Brian sat across from me drinking his coffee and reading the sports section like he was the father in an 80’s teen coming of age movie. He did call me sport once when he and my mother first got together, so it’s not as if I hadn’t entertained the thought that he really was just a B movie side character who’d lost his way.

The varnish on the table had flaked away in spots, showing the lighter shit quality wood that had been stained to look posh and fancy. I picked at it as I waited for my mom to finish breakfast. For a self proclaimed punk I really was quite codependent on my parents.

“Don’t pick at the table. It already looks bad.” Brian said, not taking his squashed pug face out from behind the newspaper.  

Again, 80’s side character.

“It looked shittier before. I’m giving it character.”

“No you’re not. Ease off.” He put the paper down long enough to refill his mug.

I did stop, but only because the food had finished. I ate quickly and kissed my mother goodbye before grabbing my bag and heading outside, it was still dark as I climbed on my bike and started off on the direction of the school, but that just meant that I’d have time to stop in at the coffee shop near campus where I knew Sadie would be working. I was there every Wednesday, Friday and Monday morning, mainly just to see her but also because they were the only place in town that let customers write on the walls and there was always something new from passing bands and local kids alike.

I’d first met Sadie in sophomore biology, she was my lab partner and I was in love nearly at first sight. She was the only girl I’d met who was never afraid of cobalt blue eyeshadow on a Monday. Or any day, really. She was tall with perpetually ill contained wiry black hair that threatened to pop every tie or wrap she tried to force it into, and the prettiest dark brown eyes I’d ever seen. They were like the colour of an old whiskey bottle full of soil, in the best possible way.

Her brown eyes lit up a bit, in a way that I promised myself I wouldn’t over analyze, as the little bell signalling my arrival tinkled above my head. I made my way over to the counter, old travel mug in one hand and the other reaching for the zipper on my bag. I pulled out a slightly rumpled paperback Nietzsche that she’d let me borrow a few weeks earlier and tossed it onto the counter. She smiled a big toothy grin.

“How’d you like it?” Sadie asked, turning around to stash it under the counter where she kept her purse.

“I mean, God is dead and we killed him, y’know?” I didn’t want to admit I hadn’t been able to get through it.

“You couldn’t get through it, could you?” She laughed.

Damn.

I rubbed my hand on the back of my neck and let out a nervous laugh. I’d been caught red handed.

“Jesus, it was so fucking dry, I don’t know how you read that shit.” I finally admitted, embarrassment blooming across my already red face.

Sadie shook her head, amusement still apparent on her grinning face.

“Obviously the answer is that I’m far more powerful than you.” She teased. “Are you getting coffee, or did you just come in here to insult my book recs?”

“Oh, yeah, right. Just a light roast if you have it on.” I handed her my travel mug, not missing the moment her fingers overreached and brushed against my hand. I tried my best not to outwardly shiver; I’m a lovesick teen not a perv.

“You’re gonna die if you keep drinking this much coffee, my guy.” Sadie commented playfully, pouring the coffee into the rather oversized mug. I don’t drink that much coffee, compared to some people at least.

“Hey, I’m here for a good time, not a long one.” I shrugged with a smile, handing her the money and grabbing my drink. She rolled her eyes rather dramatically as I walked out the door, throwing a lazy salute her way.

I grabbed my bike when I got outside and dragged it beside me as I began my trek to the school, sipping my coffee as I went. The coffee was horrendously unpalatable sludge, as usual, though I nearly chugged it anyway. For all the things she was good at, making coffee was most definitely not one of them, but I needed the cheap caffeine and I enjoyed talking to her, so it was a secret I’d keep til I was dead and gone a thousand years.

The walk to the school was nice, if cold, and I got time to catch up on a podcast I’d been neglecting as of late about local activism on a budget, real stellar shit.

By the time I got my bike locked up and got inside the building the student parking lot had begun to fill quite rapidly and students were starting to pour through the doors. Luckily I had a spare first period, which I quite smartly elected to spend napping in the senior’s lounge. Just because I’d just chugged bean sludge doesn’t mean a guy can’t want a little nap.

The couch cushions were full of food wrappers and mystery crumbs, but there was one broken leather recliner that was comfy as hell, as long as you stayed to the left so as to avoid the one wayward spring.

And so, choosing my proverbial haystack, I lowered my hat and settled in for the morning.


End file.
